The present invention relates generally to the data processing field, and more particularly, relates to a method and computer program product for implementing parental supervision for Internet browsing.
The Internet is a major source of information and entertainment for a growing number of people. Parents, having responsibility for minor children, need to monitor and control what their children are accessing over the Internet.
Parents need better ways to monitor what their children are browsing on the Internet. Current art provides a measure of control through censoring or filtering certain sites based on a Universal Resource Locator (URL). However, current censoring software is not infallible and can allow undesirable material. Lists are never totally complete; images cannot be analyzed for content; lists go out of date because bad sites are proliferating and changing, often with the intent of outsmarting filtering programs. Available censoring programs sometimes prohibit good sites that are not wanted to be filtered.
Thus many parents opt to monitor usage in addition to, or instead of censoring software only. Current art provides monitoring through logging of URLs visited. Current logs of visited URLs have limitations. They provide time stamps and URLs, but no images. The URLs are not always descriptive, and the large number of URLs in a log make revisiting each URL impractical. Current logs require consistent review by a parent, but a parent is not always aware when greater Internet usage is taking place. Thus logs are often not effective, even when kept because review is inconsistent or not thorough. Since parents have difficulty controlling what the child views outside of the home, many parents hope to teach children proper viewing behavior within the home and develop trust in a child""s viewing choices. However, the weaknesses of current logging are even more apparent, here. The sooner after an infraction a parent can catch a bad choice after viewing, the better for training, but because the parent may be unaware of a bad choice and because of the difficulty in monitoring using current logs, the teaching opportunity is missed and the benefit lost.
A need exists for an improved method and computer program product for implementing parental supervision for Internet browsing. It is desirable to provide parents with an effective mechanism for monitoring what their children view. It is desirable to provide an improved method and computer program product which more approximates a parent looking over the shoulder of a child, such that the parent can more quickly understand what the child is viewing and more quickly and effectively work with bad choices the child is making.
A principal object of the present invention is to provide a method and computer program product for implementing parental supervision for Internet browsing. Other important objects of the present invention are to provide such method and computer program product for implementing parental supervision for Internet browsing substantially without negative effect and that overcome many of the disadvantages of prior art arrangements.
In brief, a method and computer program product are provided for implementing supervision functions for Internet browsing. A user profile record is maintained. A universal resource locator (URL) is identified. Approval is determined for the identified URL. The URL is displayed according to the user profile record. A view record is created.
In accordance with features of the invention, the user profile record includes a display level, a URL history capture, and trust lists. The display level includes approved, monitored and restricted options. The URL history capture includes approved, monitored and restricted options and defined threshold values. The trust lists include a list of approved web sites.